Pedro K wrote: » I think, at times, the IRA were a necessary evil. Sometimes, you can't get the ballot without the bullet.
flookdgates wrote: » The PIRA had my passive support until the Enniskillen bombing. That was a low blow that was unforgivable. Never supported the CIRA or the RIRA. The Good Friday Agreement and peace process is the only way forward. Republican Sinn Fein and the 32CSM are meme-tier.
Taytoland wrote: » A well established lie from Republicans.
NIMAN wrote: » As Mao Zedong once said, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". Appears to have been correct too in the Irish situation. The IRA has made SF what they are now.
hatrickpatrick wrote: » Campaigns against random, innocent civilians in NI and mainland UK made them totally and utterly unforgivable, but the other things they did in terms of resisting and trying to protect communities from brutality carried out by loyalist paramilitaries, the RUC and British Army (state sponsored terrorists in both cases as far as I'm concerned) is absolutely something they should be lauded for. Like so many things in life, assholes and headbangers at the fringe turned the IRA into a hideous monstrosity of murder. But in terms of being a bulwark for nationalists against the unbelievable evil carried out by the RUC, British Army and loyalist paramilitaries, I don't see how anyone could not praise the organisation for its actions in those days. Are people honestly forgetting that in the late 1960s, the police literally attacked and beat the sh!t out of peaceful protesters in Derry, with total backing from the establishment? The nationalists needed a way of fighting back against such violence which didn't involve just lying down and taking it, FFS. You die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villian. What the IRA became was a monstrous evil, but what it began as was a bulwark against monstrous evil, and too many people seem willing to forgive one evil while condemning the other. What the RUC and British Army did in Northern Ireland is one of the most evil chapters in a modern nation's history, and this whole "the IRA were worse" bullsh!t is ridiculous. Yes, the IRA became an evil organisation. No, they were not and never will count as being as evil as those who engaged in evil acts for the sole purpose of keeping people down.
dd972 wrote: » They had the means and organisational capacity to wipe out the likes of Johnny Adair and his state backed cronies so I don't know why they didn't go after them more stridently, that's one thing I'll never understand about the PIRA of the Troubles, why didn't they do enough to protect Catholics/Nationalists?
_Kaiser_ wrote: » Nope, never supported it or their campaign.... the number of armchair republicans that still seem to be lurking out there spreading the old hatred... You see it here anytime a SF/IRA...
_Kaiser_ wrote: » Nope, never supported it or their campaign. Both sides were as bad as each other really. What really saddens me though is the number of armchair republicans that still seem to be lurking out there spreading the old hatred and still living in those bad old days. You see it here anytime a SF/IRA or "British" thread pops up. Then there's the whole thing of people gleefully hoping Brexit turns out to be such a disaster so that the UK will suffer from it and "we" will get a united Ireland from it. I have no interest in either.. I am on record here as having serious issues with the way the EU has evolved over particularly the last decade and fully support those who are questioning this direction rather than blindly accepting the narrative that it's the only way for Europe, and anything else is just impossible - if the UK actually comes through it and prospers in the next few years it'll be a disaster for the EU as many other countries will start to pull out IMO (and that's also why the massive campaign of discrediting the electorate's decision has been waged. The EU simply cannot afford for Brexit to succeed). As for Ireland... We have more than enough problems domestically as it is without taking on the significant problems that absorbing Northern Ireland would represent - economically, structurally and of course the very real possibility that it could result in significant security problems. Problems which thankfully have largely been put behind us. I think people's expression of a desire for a united Ireland is purely superficial without any real thoughts of the consequences it would bring - put bluntly, we can barely run the country we have (housing, health, the economic divides between Dublin and the rest of the country, the political incompetence and corruption and general half-assed approaches to pretty much everything) , are busy pulling more people out of the tax system each year (imagine if people were told they'd need to pay another 150 quid of their monthly wage towards a "unification/solidarity" charge - how many would still be supportive then??), and given the largely bloated and inefficient mess that is our public sector and state services, imagine trying to integrate the systems of the North into that (assuming anyone would actually rather the HSE over the NHS for example). The best thing that can happen is some sort of border arrangement that reasonably tries to accommodate both sides (if such a thing is even possible on an island with 2 jurisdictions that will be even further apart in some ways), but anything more is just fantasy IMO.
Pedro K wrote: » Catholics were routinely discriminated against. Their marches were ignored, and in one high profile case, fired upon. I acknowledge that the IRA did some absolutely, unforgivabley, attrocious things. I also acknowledge that life isn't always black and white, and you can only kick a populace for so long before sections of it kick back.
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